water in rear housing on farmalls

pete 23

Well-known Member
Just to add to the water problem in the rear ends of the Farmall tractors. All H & M's and up to early 4 & 560's had a breather hole in the shift lever shield. It consists of a groove in the shield where shift lever goes through. It is covered with a flat washer held down with a spring. If it is not plugged up considerable water can find it's way down through when out in the weather. So, that is the so called hole to the outside.

IH later eleminated that groove and added a o ring to the top of the shield. Then they drilled a hole in the casting the shield "shielded" but the shield did not plug hole. That was their new improved breather. They had a package and I installed many during final drive repairs on those tractors.

The water can also go down through the platform bolts from water pooling in the recess. I put a rtv gasket sealer on the upper parts of the bolt when installing them.

Condensation can add considerable amounts of water. Normally when you see frost on the outside of the tractor like when it is sitting in a unheated shed, the same amount of frost is inside.

Years ago, some farmers would park their tractors in the cattle barn as it was considerably warmer than outside. Those tractors would rust electrical components etc and condense water something terrible even when used for chores every day.
 
Great Info. When tractors were used for 7 hours a day almost every day, the heat of the use would drive off the H2O. even a few degrees above ambient above freezing will reduce moisture. We don't do that today on our baby tractors, so there it is. Jim
 
Good info there guys! Wish this forum had stickys at top of all posts. Knowledge like this and John T's troubleshooter would be most valuable.
 
(quoted from post at 13:57:47 02/20/18) Great Info. When tractors were used for 7 hours a day almost every day, the heat of the use would drive off the H2O. even a few degrees above ambient above freezing will reduce moisture. We don't do that today on our baby tractors, so there it is. Jim

Wouldn't the heat created by friction also increase the condensation chances?

A modern day example that comes to mind is a pickup. When you run down to 1/4 tank the warm recirculated fuel can promote condensation formation in the head space above the fuel level.
 
Warm air and warm oil hold less water than cold does. It is possible that water in fuel will evaporate out of the warm fuel, and
condense on the cooler metal above the fuel. That water would already be in the system. Getting it out by using ethanol fuel is
easiest because it literally injects the water. Jim
 
Quote: "Warm air and warm oil hold less water than cold does.".
With respect, do mean to say this in the sense of absolute mass of water per unit volume of air (or oil
OR
in the sense of the mass of water per unit volume of air (or oil) relative to the maximum amount of water per unit volume of air at which condensation takes place?

Air on a 100F day, at 60% relative humidity, contains approx. 13 times MORE water per cubic foot of air than air at 20F at 100% relative humidity.
 
Bad time of year with weather in my area. Live in valley and with wet weather and colder than ridge tops, fast warm ups during the day everything in shed gets wet with condensation. Sometimes tractors look like it is raining under them. Shed open on one side. Happens every year but later than Feb. most times. Breaking record for high temp in Feb. this year.
 
Take warm moist air cool it and it rains. A distillation process heats liquid to to form vapor which is cooled (like the top half of a gas tank) where it condenses. Jim
 

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